The Parable of the Two Sons

Introduction

What I love about this place is that no matter who’s here, or in the summertime who isn’t here, we’re just such an enthusiastic bunch of worshipers, aren’t we? You can come here and sing at the top of your lungs.

Our theme through the summer has been the parables of Jesus. How many know Jesus told parables? He told simple stories about simple things and simple truths, made-up stories really, not based on actual events, but very relatable. He told a parable to explain, “This is what the kingdom of God is like.” That was his mission, to come and show us the Father and show us what the Father’s kingdom was all about. And so I’ve chosen to do the parable of the two sons. It’s a simple little story, and we’re going to dive into it and see how it applies to us.

Reading the parable

It’s in Matthew 21, verses 28 to 32. I’m just going to read it through and then we’ll talk about it. This is Jesus talking:

“But what do you think about this? A man with two sons told the older boy, ‘Go out and work in the vineyard today.’ The son answered, ‘No, I won’t go.’ But later he changed his mind and went anyway. Then the father told the other son, ‘You go.’ And he said, ‘Yes, sir, I will.’ But he didn’t go. Which of the two obeyed his father?”

They replied, and this is the Pharisees who are questioning Jesus, “The first.” Pretty straightforward, right? The one who actually did what his father asked him.

Then Jesus explained his meaning: “I tell you the truth, even corrupt tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the kingdom of God before you do.” He’s talking to the Pharisees. “For John the Baptist came and showed you the right way to live, but you didn’t believe him, while tax collectors and prostitutes did. And even when you saw this happening, you refused to believe him and repent of your sins.”

The context: Jesus’ final days

Let’s take a look at some context for this story. It’s in the last few days of Jesus’ life. This is where Jesus has long since ceased to be winning any popularity contest, as you’ll see by the events of this day. He’s on the last leg of his mission on earth. He’s about to be arrested and tried and executed.

Here’s what happened just prior to this parable. The triumphal entry. Anybody remember that? Jesus riding on a donkey, the crowds cheering, going wild, laying their robes on the donkey and spreading them in his path, cutting branches out of trees and waving them, the crowd shouting, “Praise God for the son of David, the king.” A very much a high moment, but Jesus knows what’s coming. That first event of the day alone would have really bugged the Pharisees. They got after him: “Why are you letting them shout like that? Who do you think you are?” Because they despised Jesus by this point.

Then he goes from there into the temple, makes a whip, and clears the temple of all the merchants selling stuff and the money changers. Not just politely, meek-and-mild Jesus. He flips over the tables of the money changers, chases out the people selling animals for sacrifice, and creates a real chaotic hubbub in the temple of all places. So the Pharisees again, he’s not shooting for popularity with the religious elite.

Then he heals several people. It says the blind and the lame came to him in the temple and he healed them. Then children are still shouting, “Praise God for the son of David.” The Pharisees are beside themselves, so indignant. They’re questioning him: “By whose authority are you speaking in this temple?” He’s not one of them, didn’t go to Pharisee school like they did, doesn’t have the robes and the trappings that proclaim their prestige. He’s just the guy from Nazareth who’s been causing chaos throughout the last three years, and especially on this day.

So Jesus, because he only says what he hears the Father saying, asks them a question back: “By whose authority did John the Baptist teach and preach and baptize?” And they’re stuck. If they say his authority came from heaven, Jesus will say, “Then why didn’t you believe him and repent and get baptized?” If they say his authority was completely human, they’ll be mobbed by the crowd, because everyone believes John was sent from heaven. So they’re stumped. They say, “Well, Jesus, we can’t give you an answer.” So he says, “Then neither will I answer you on whose authority I’m speaking in the temple.”

So that’s the day, immediately prior to telling this story about the two sons. And just so you know, the story by itself would have enraged them, but then he goes on and immediately tells another parable about the evil farmers, and the chapter ends with the Pharisees knowing that the evil farmers were them, and they hated Jesus all the more. That’s the context of the parable of the two sons.

Two kinds of instruction

So let’s dive into it a bit. How does this apply to us today? I like to look at two levels. There’s Jesus’ teachings on how to live, like the Sermon on the Mount, and really everything he taught was teaching in a general way how to live. Like when he says the two greatest commandments that fulfill all the law and the prophets: love God with everything you have, and love your neighbor as yourself. Those are general things. They’re not specific direction. Live your life this way. Honor God with your whole heart, mind, soul, and strength, and love your neighbor as you love yourself. In other words, treat everybody with love. That’s the lifestyle Jesus was preaching the whole time he was here.

The second level is about specific instructions. Specific things we’re asked to do that aren’t general, that are specific direction. Like in this parable, the father says to his sons, “Son, go work in my vineyard today.” A specific direction for that day.

A couple of weeks ago, when I spoke, I talked about a time when I was talking about the mustard seed, about small things that can have a big impact. That’s another example of the Father telling me to do something. At first I said no. He told me, I’m sitting in a crowd of hundreds of people, over on this side, a couple rows back, and he points out a guy to me sitting way over on the far side. I sort of know him, but I haven’t really talked to him much, touched him or prayed for him or whatever. And the Father says to me during worship, “Go and give that guy a hug.” And I went, “I’m probably not hearing very good right now. Can I just worship you for a little bit?” “Go give that guy a hug.” No, no, he doesn’t know me, he’s going to think I’m weird. Anyway, eventually I caved. I walked across and gave him a hug, and this guy would not let me go. Whatever it did in him was very meaningful to him, he said later, and so on. That’s a private thing for him, but it’s an example of getting a specific instruction, saying no, and eventually repenting and going, like the first son did.

I want you to notice that specific instructions are a very father-son, father-daughter kind of interaction. We sang today about worthy is the Lamb, worthy is the King, seated on the throne high above it all. Isn’t that who he is? But he’s also a Father who wants to sit with you and say, “Alf, I’ve got something for that guy over there, and you’ll unlock it if you go give him a hug.” A specific instruction. He is seated high above it all, and he is also very interested in us partnering with him to do his work in a very individual, sometimes very simple way. Jesus said, “If you even give somebody a cup of water in my name, you will be rewarded.” Very simple thing.

So, grand, general ways to live, the Jesus lifestyle, yes, let’s work those things into our life, that’s a progressive thing. Specific instructions, like in the parable, are another thing altogether, but they’re indicative of the intimate relationship the Father wants to have with his family, with his children.

Have you ever said you’d do something and didn’t follow through? Anybody? So the parable of the two sons speaks directly to this struggle. It’s a very, very simple story, but it’s a truth about what happens in the kingdom of God. We can ask ourselves, “Am I living in alignment with Jesus’ teachings, or am I offering lip service?” When we read Jesus’ teachings, do this, love your neighbor as yourself, do we say, “Yeah, but Jesus wouldn’t say that if he had my neighbor,” right? And that doesn’t just mean your next-door neighbor, it means anybody else in your constituency. So what he wants us to know is that it’s not just what we say, but what we do that matters in the kingdom of God. Are we living in alignment with his teachings?

Words without action

The parable contrasts true obedience with empty words. The first son initially says no, but later does what his father asked. The second son agrees to work, says what the father wants to hear. If a father asks his son to do something, the son knows what the father wants him to say: “Yes, I’ll do that.” So he says what the father wants to hear to try to get him off his back. In his heart he’s thinking, “No way, I’m not going, I got things to do today, I want to go to the beach, I’m not going to work in the vineyard.” But to his father’s face he says, “Oh sure, Dad, I’ll go,” just to get him off his back. But his words, and our words really, this is one of the messages here, our words are meaningless unless they’re backed up with action.

We may even have meant to say yes, to follow through on our yes in the moment. I don’t know how many times I’ve sat in a meeting, or during worship heard God speak to me about something, and I go, “Yes, I will do that.” And then as soon as church is over, I go, “Where are we going for lunch? What’s going on?” And three days later I go, “Yeah, I had sort of said I was going to do that.” Anybody else ever feel under the anointing, under the presence of God, and say, “Yes, I agree with that, I want to do that,” but not follow through? This parable is speaking to that controversy that goes on in our humanness, where we often know the right thing to do, and we even say it, verbalize it, “Yes, that’s the right thing to do, I’m going to do that,” but we don’t.

A little example, which has nothing to do with spiritual things: Pam and I have gone to Spain a few times for holidays, and every time we go, we survive on our little tiny bit of Spanish, “ola,” “por favor,” and a few other words. But we say to ourselves, when we get home, we’re going to take Duolingo or something, we’re going to learn Spanish, so next time we go we can actually speak a little. Guess how many times we’ve actually carried through and done it? Zero. Maybe this year it’ll be different, I don’t know. But we say it, and we don’t follow through. That’s just a little personal example.

So Jesus, in this parable, notice something. He’s not looking for brownie points with the Pharisees. He uses what would have been a really harsh example.

Tax collectors and prostitutes

“Tax collectors and prostitutes will enter the kingdom of God before you do,” to the religious elite, the heads of the religion of the day. He couldn’t have said anything harsher in that culture. Tax collectors were the lowest of the low, because they worked for the invading Roman government, collecting taxes on behalf of the enemy. And prostitutes, we have the laws about sexual purity in the Old Testament too. So Jesus is saying the lowest of the low will enter the kingdom of God before you will. Why? Because they’re so great and holy and pure? No. Because they actually heard a message from John the Baptist and said, “I need to repent of the way I’ve been living, and to carry through with that, I’m going to let John baptize me, so I’m putting to death the old way of living and becoming a new person from now on.” They followed through. That’s the point. They believed John’s message. They didn’t just say, “Oh, that’s really good, someday I should do something about that.” No, they actually responded right then, and were baptized. These self-righteous religious leaders knew all the right things to say, but they failed to act. And so Jesus said, these low-on-the-social-totem-pole people will enter the kingdom of God before you do. They must have been quite horrified by that.

Here’s what kind of amuses me a bit. In the story, who’s the father asking his sons? It’s God, okay, that’s the idea of this parable. The Father is God, asking his sons or daughters a specific instruction and waiting for their reply. Now God, because he knows everything, knows that when the first son says no, he’s not too worried about it, because he knows the son’s going to change his mind and go. The second son, on the other hand, he also knows, even though the son says, “Yes, Dad, I will,” that he’s not going, because he’s God. It’s interesting to be dealing with somebody who’s so unlike us. We can fool each other, can’t we? Ever fool anybody, pretend sincerity, but in your heart you’re going, whatever? But you can’t fool God.

The second thing, and this is a little bunny trail but it does relate: what does being a Christian actually mean? What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus? Does saying I’m a Christian make me a Christian? What does a follower of Jesus do in his life? He progressively grows, as the Holy Spirit helps him and guides him, one issue at a time. Can you imagine if God showed you every single thing that was wrong with you at one shot? We just might as well expire right now. But he doesn’t. He takes us through our whole life. A follower of Jesus, at the Holy Spirit’s prompting, will adjust their lifestyle and change their life according to what they hear from God. That’s a follower of Jesus. So does saying “Christian” make me one? When I spoke a few weeks ago, I mentioned there are 2.6 billion people on this planet who claim their religion is Christianity, from people who go to church once a year or not at all, but if they had to pick a religion, well, they’re not Buddhist, so they guess they’re Christian. So just saying that doesn’t really make you one, does it? It’s easy to say we’re Christians. It’s easy to say we follow Jesus, that we’re disciples of Jesus. But what are our actions? Because in the kingdom of God, words aren’t completely inconsequential, we will give an account for the words we say, but it’s our actions that actually show what we believe, what we’re actually putting our trust in.

We sang so much today about faith, about faithfulness, the faithfulness of God. An action at God’s direction, even a simple little thing like go give that guy a hug, when I eventually gave in, I had faith that it wasn’t me giving him a hug that was going to do a work in his life, it was my Father, it was the faithfulness of my Father, knowing that some random guy coming over and giving him a hug would do something in his life that was significant to him. It’s counting on the faithfulness of God.

Never too late to repent

The second thing I wanted to talk about is that the parable of the two sons reminds us it’s never too late to repent. No matter what you’ve heard God say, “I want you to do this,” and you say, “No,” you might say no for a day, a week, a year, or ten years, but when you turn around and say, “Yes,” God rejoices. God goes to the angels: “I knew it, I knew he was going to turn. There’s my boy, that’s my boy, I knew he’d turn.” It’s never too late, while we’re alive, to turn our no into a yes, and to take action according to that. So this parable encourages us to examine areas of our life where we’ve resisted God, and to live in genuine obedience, we need to take intentional steps to align our actions with our words. Repentance isn’t just about feeling sorry.

If you’ve resisted God about something or another, and I would be shocked, really shocked, if everyone in this room hasn’t resisted God at one time or another, right? In fact, I’d be shocked if anyone in this room isn’t resisting God in some area right now. Me too. So the question isn’t “are we resisting,” yes, we are, in certain areas. The question is, will we turn? We sing, “All I have is yours.” We sang it this morning. And God’s going, “Well, except for that part, and this part, and the other part.” But that’s okay, because you’re coming along, it’s progress, you’re human, son. Jesus, remember what it was like to be human? Oh yeah. So it encourages us to examine areas where we can repent, but it’s more than feeling sorry. It’s about taking action to actually align our lives with what Jesus taught, with what God is teaching.

Zacchaeus: action proves the heart

As an example out of Scripture, which is really cool, in Luke 19, Jesus goes to Jericho, walking along, there’s a mob of people, and a little short guy, not part of the tall clan, he’s a little short guy, and he can’t see over the crowd, so he decides to climb a tree. Anybody know his name? Zacchaeus. We used to sing that in Sunday school. Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree, the Lord for to see. Who said there’s no Sunday school today?

So Zacchaeus climbs up the tree to see Jesus. Jesus senses his heart is open to him. He’s trying really hard to interact with Jesus, but in the crowd he can’t see him. So he’s up in a tree. Jesus comes to the tree, looks up, and invites himself to Zacchaeus’ house. “Come on down out of there, let’s go to your house, I’m going to be at your house today.” The result of that interaction, the meal they probably had together, was that Zacchaeus saw something, decided something, and then acted. What did he do? He was a tax collector, one of the lowest of the low on the social ladder in that culture because he worked for the enemy, and he was also bilking people, telling them their taxes were way higher than they really needed to be so he could pad his own pocket. But guess what he did when he interacted with Jesus? He says to Jesus, “If I have defrauded anyone, I’ll pay him back more than I defrauded him, and I’ll give half my money away to the poor.”

And you see, actions showed something. Jesus summed it up in verse 10: “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham.” Was salvation coming to his home because he said, “Yes, Jesus, what you’re teaching is excellent, amen”? No. Salvation came to his home because he acted. He acted. He heard whatever Jesus said to him, we don’t even know what, it’s not recorded, but whatever he said, it touched him. He made a decision and he acted, with his money, which would have been god in his life up until this point. Anybody else ever have money as god in your life? Yeah, there’s one brave person in the crowd. Two. Three. All right, you’re feeling the conviction now. So it’s not just about mental assent, agreeing, “Yes, that’s right.” It’s about action.

As John Collie shared last week, this could also apply to areas in our lives where we haven’t invested or seen growth, where we haven’t prioritized what Jesus is prioritizing. As I said earlier, Jesus doesn’t tell us everything all at once that would be better for us if we changed, he usually tells me one thing at a time, or at most a couple. But whatever he’s impressing on you, that’s the area he wants you to prioritize, to dig into, to pass from saying “Yes, that’s good” to doing. There’s always time to repent, always time to change our minds from “I don’t want to invest in that area” to “Okay, now I will.”

A personal story on tithing

Even as you’ve heard over the last six to eight weeks, we’ve been going through these parables of Jesus, because they’re very important teachings on what the kingdom of God is like. We need to know these things. Jesus does teach, everything he said was teaching, but the parables were specific, and he took the time to explain them even to his disciples in detail, so they’d really get it. So even as we hear these, how many times have we said at some point, “Yeah, I will do something about that, I will respond, I will change something in my life,” but then we go away and we don’t. Like us trying to learn Spanish. It’s a really good idea, we really should, maybe we could even speak to somebody about God if we learned Spanish, right, Pam? Because Pam loves to prophesy over random people all over the place every day, and if she only knew Spanish, she could do it double. We could even put a God angle on that, and yet we have not, as yet.

Or even when you hear a teaching and say in your heart, “No way, that’s too much, I’m not doing that.” Here’s my personal example. We got saved when we were, I don’t know, 18 or something, and got into a church, and fairly soon after that, some of you know our story, one of the things we learned was that to be part of a community, a family, a church, it’s important to contribute. Time, energy, and money. Of course money was like, “Uh-uh.” Time and energy, okay, maybe, but money. They were teaching about tithing, about giving 10 percent of your income to the church, to God’s work, which supported lease payments on a building and everything else it does. Initially I went, “No way, not a chance, I’m not giving 10 percent of our income, that’s ridiculous.” But God spoke to my heart and said, again this is a faith thing, “Will you trust me?” So we did. And a little while later, this was when we had double income, no kids, so it was a little easier to think about, we heard a teaching somewhere where we could actually tithe 20 percent. And you know what? Tithing 10 percent, things had gone great for us. We bought our first house when we were 19 years old, in Whitehorse. I was just there a few weeks ago, took a picture and sent it to Pam, and she wrote back, “Our first house.” That we bought when we were 19 in Whitehorse. And God was so faithful that even though we were giving up 10 percent, instead of putting a dollar bill in the offering bucket when it went by, we put in 10 percent, and God was so faithful that we were able to buy a house. We decided, let’s tithe 20 percent. So for some years after that, we did that, and we never lacked a thing. It was amazing. But I had said, “No, I’m not doing that.” Like the first son, “No, I’m not going to the vineyard.” But later he changed his mind and went. And so we did, and we experienced God’s faithfulness out of that.

If you want to live on the basis of, “I’ll just do the minimum I can to get by or to be accepted,” or can you put your trust in God, Jehovah Jireh, my provider, will you believe him when he promises, “You will have everything you need, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things will be added to you”? When God tells us to do something that’s hard, it’s his invitation into closer relationship, an invitation to see him actually work, to see him actually move. It may not happen fast. Some people talk themselves into, “Okay, next Sunday I’m going to tithe,” so they tithe, and then they go, “Okay, I’m waiting, where’s the windfall, am I going to win the lottery now?” It’s not like that. But God promises he will be faithful, that you will not lack anything that you need. When God gives an assignment, like he gave me, “Tithe 10 percent,” it was an invitation into relationship, an invitation to experience his faithfulness, so much so that we decided to tithe 20 percent. We never did get to 30, did we? God put a spirit of generosity in us, because we knew we couldn’t lose, because of the track record he had. It’s an invitation to trust him.

Closing: what have you not done?

So, in closing, the parable of the two sons: action over words. Yes, words are important, they’re not insignificant, but we need to move past words into action. Action will back up our words. Words are not wrong, but action gives validity to our words. And repentance is not time-limited, as long as we’re still alive. Aren’t you glad? Hebrews 4:7 says, “Today, when you hear his voice, don’t harden your heart.” One of the translations says, “God keeps resetting the time as today.” He might have said this to you 400 times, but today he wants you to respond to whatever it is. Don’t harden your heart. God values our decision to turn from our own way to walk in his ways. Obedience and faith are intertwined. It takes faith in God’s character to reverse a no and turn it into a yes, to decide that something we’ve resisted doing is actually an invitation into relationship.

So what is one area where we have resisted or said no? Think about that for a second. I believe it’s possible each one of you here will have something. I’m not trying to make you feel bad, that’s not the point at all, it’s never the point, that’s not God’s point either. Conviction is not about making you feel bad, it’s about putting you on a path that is the best for you, that is good for you, that will reap good fruit in your life. What is an area where you’ve said no? What is an area where you’ve said yes but have not yet acted? These are things we can really pray about and actually do something about this morning. This is the message of the two sons. Would you like to come and pray with us in closing?

It got real quiet when Alf asked, “Have you been resisting God in some area?” Holy Spirit fall, right? Let’s stand. The word is living and active, and it’s trying to do something in us this morning. We don’t want to be people who just hear the word and go out and don’t do anything. So here’s the question for you to ask: what do you need to carry through on that God has asked of you? I want you to remember as we pray that sometimes saying yes to God is very inconvenient, it’ll pinch you, not a good time. Is God asking something of you that’s inconvenient? Let your yes be yes, and your no be no.

Father, just as we stand here today as your sons and daughters, we don’t want to avoid conviction. In fact, Holy Spirit, if it’s from you, we want to embrace conviction, because that sets us on a path of greater understanding and relationship with you. We want to be free to say yes, free to let our yes be yes and our no be no. Father, we’re asking you today, if there’s anything in us, and there’s probably something in all of us, but Lord, if there’s something recently, or even something from a year ago, that we haven’t followed through on, would you bring it back to us, would you give us an opportunity to step into what you’ve asked of us. What was the last thing God asked you to do, and have you done it? Just say that quietly to yourself: “God, what was the last thing that you asked me to do, and have I done it?” Holy Spirit, remind us, everything from a simple hug to being generous with somebody to forgiving somebody. We don’t know what it is for each person, but we know we want your ways and your will in us. Father, we’re here today as sons and daughters saying we want our yes to be yes and our no to be no.

If there’s something you need to repent of, God has been speaking to you and you haven’t been listening, that’s not a humiliating thing, that’s a freedom thing, because the enemy and your flesh will keep you arguing that it’s okay to keep ignoring. When we hear and obey, there’s a blessing there. So if you have something you need to follow through on, come alongside and have somebody pray with you, that you’ll say yes to it. If you’ve said no and you’re afraid of what the yes will look like, come up and let these people pray with you. And as always, because the River is known for being a place where healing happens, we also want to say, if you need healing for something in your body, please come up. Are you going to respond to the Lord, your yes be yes and your no be no, or if you need healing.

Father, thank you so much that you have something for us today, and we just want to embrace it. In Jesus’ name, amen.

So, come up for prayer before you leave, and let’s walk in what we’ve heard today.